the number of his works as a painter, an engraver, and a designer on
wood,--Albert Durer died at Nuremberg on 6th April 1528, in the
fifty-seventh year of his age. His wife’s wretched temper had
unquestionably rendered the latter years of his life very unhappy, and
in her eagerness to obtain money she appears to have urged her husband
to what seems more like the heartless toil of a slave than an artist’s
exercise of his profession. It is said that her sitting-room was under
her husband’s studio, and that she was accustomed to give an admonitory
knock against the ceiling whenever she suspected that he was “not
getting forward with his work.” The following extracts from a letter,
written by Bilibald Pirkheimer shortly after Durer’s death, will show
that common fame has not greatly belied this heartless, selfish woman,
in ascribing, in a great measure, her husband’s death to the daily
vexation which she caused him, and to her urging him to continual
application in order that a greater sum might be secured to her on his
decease. The passages relating to Durer in Pirkheimer’s letter are to
the following effect.[V-56]
[Footnote V-56: This letter is addressed to “Johann Tscherte,” an
architect residing at Vienna, the mutual friend of Pirkheimer and
Durer.--Von Murr, Journal, 10er Theil, S. 36.]
“I have indeed lost in Albert one of the best friends I had on earth;
and nothing pains me more than the thought of his death having been so
melancholy, which, next to the will of Providence, I can ascribe to no
one but his wife, for she fretted him so much and tasked him so hard
that he departed sooner than he otherwise would. He was dried up like a
bundle of straw; durst never enjoy himself nor enter into company. This
bad woman, moreover, was anxious about that for which she had no
occasion to take heed,--she urged him to labour day and night solely
that he might earn money, even at the cost of his life, and leave it to
her; she was content to live despised, as she does still, provided
Albert might leave her six thousand guilders. But she cannot enjoy them:
the sum of the matter is, she alone has been the cause of his death.
I have often expostulated with her about her fretful, jealous conduct,
and warned her what the consequences would be, but have only met with
reproach. To the friends and sincere well-wishers of Albert she was sure
to be the enemy; while such conduct was to him a cause of exceeding
grief, and contributed to bring him to the grave. I have not seen her
since his death; she will have nothing to say to me, although I have on
many occasions rendered her great service. Whoever contradicts her, or
gives not way to her in all things, is sure to incur her enmity; I am,
therefore, better pleased that she should keep herself away. She and her
sister are not indeed women of loose character; but, on the contrary,
are, as I believe, of honest reputation and religious; one would,
however, rather have one of the other kind who otherwise conducts
herself in a pleasant manner, than a fretful, jealous, scolding
wife--however devout she may be--with whom a man can have no peace
either day or night. We must, however, leave the matter to the will of
God, who will be gracious and merciful to Albert, for his life was that
of a pious and righteous man. As he died like a good Christian, we may
have little doubt of his salvation. God grant us grace, and that in his
own good time we may happily follow Albert.”
The popular error,--as I believe it to be,--that Albert Durer was an
engraver on wood, has not tended, in England, where his works as a
painter are but little known, to increase his reputation. Many persons
on looking over the wood engravings which bear his mark have thought but
meanly of their execution; and have concluded that his abilities as an
artist were much over-rated, on the supposition that his fame chiefly
rested on the presumed fact of his being the engraver of those works.
Certain writers, too, speaking of him as a painter and an engraver on
copper, have formed rather an unfavourable estimate of his talents, by
comparing his pictures with those of his great Italian contemporaries,--
Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Raffaele,--and by judging of his
engravings with reference to the productions of modern art, in which the
freedom and effect of etching are combined with the precision and
clearness of lines produced by the burin. This, however, is judging the
artist by an unfair standard. Though he has not attained, nor indeed
attempted, that sublimity which seems to have been principally the aim
of the three great Italian masters above mentioned, he has produced much
that is beautiful, natural, and interesting; and which, though it may
not stand so high in the scale of art as the grand compositions of his
three great contemporaries, is no less necessary to its completion. The
field which he cultivated, though not yielding productions so noble or
splendid as theirs, was of greater extent and afforded greater variety.
If they have left us more sublime conceptions of past and future events,
Durer has transmitted to us more faithful pictures of the characters,
manners, and customs of his own times. Let those who are inclined to
depreciate his engravings on copper, as dry and meagre when compared
with the productions of modern engravers, consider the state in which he
found the art; and let them also recollect that he was not a mere
translator of another person’s ideas, but that he engraved his own
designs. Setting aside his merits as a painter, I am of opinion that no
artist of the present day has produced, from his own designs, three such
engravings as Durer’s Adam and Eve, St. Jerome seated in his chamber
writing, and the subject entitled Melancolia.[V-57] Let it also not be
forgotten that to Albert Durer we owe the discovery of etching; a branch
of the art which gives to modern engravers, more especially in
landscape, so great an advantage over the original inventor. Looking
impartially at the various works of Durer, and considering the period
and the country in which he lived, few, I think, will venture to deny
that he was one of the greatest artists of his age. The best proof
indeed of the solidity of his fame is afforded by the esteem in which
his works have been held for three centuries by nearly all persons who
have had opportunities of seeing them, except such as have, upon narrow
principles, formed an exclusive theory with respect to excellence in
art. With such authorities nothing can be beautiful or interesting that
is not _grand_; every country parish church should be built in the style
of a Grecian temple; our woods should grow nothing but oaks; a country
gentleman’s dove-cot should be a fac-simile of the lantern of
Demosthenes; the sign of the Angel at a country inn should be painted
by a Guido; and a picture representing the meeting of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science should be in the style of
Raffaele’s School of Athens.
[Footnote V-57: Those three engravings are respectively numbered
1, 60, and 67 in Bartsch’s list of Durer’s works in his
Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. The Adam and Eve is nine inches and
three-fourths high by seven inches and a half wide,--date 1504;
St. Jerome, nine inches and five-eighths high by seven inches and
three-eighths wide,--date 1514; Melancolia, nine inches and
three-eighths high by seven inches and one fourth wide,--date
1514.]
Lucas Cranach, a painter of great repute in his day, like his
contemporary Durer has also been supposed to be the engraver of the
wood-cuts which bear his mark, but which, in all probability, were only
drawn by him on the block and executed by professional wood engravers.
The family name of this artist was Sunder, and he is also sometimes
called Muller or Maler--Painter--from his profession. He acquired the
name Cranach, or Von Cranach, from Cranach, a town in the territory of
Bamberg, where he was born in 1470. He enjoyed the patronage of the
electoral princes of Saxony, and one of the most frequent of his marks
is a shield of the arms of that family. Another of his marks is a shield
with two swords crossed; a third is a kind of dragon; and a fourth is
the initial letters of his name, L. C. Sometimes two or three of those
marks are to be found in one cut. There are four engravings on copper
with the mark [[LCZ]] which are generally ascribed to this artist. That
they are from his designs is very likely, but whether they were engraved
by himself or not is uncertain. One of them bears the date 1492, and it
is probable that they were all executed about the same period. Two of
those pieces were in the possession of Mr. Ottley, who says, “Perhaps
the two last characters of the mark may be intended for _Cr_.” It seems,
however, more likely that the last character is intended for the letter
which it most resembles--a Z, and that it denotes the German word
_zeichnet_--that is “_drew_;” in the same manner as later artists
occasionally subjoined the letter P or F to their names for _Pinxit_ or
_Fecit_, respectively as they might have painted the picture or engraved
the plate.
One of the earliest chiaro-scuros, as has before been observed, printed
from three blocks, is from a design of Lucas Cranach. It is dated 1509,
nine years before the earliest chiaro-scuro with a date executed by Ugo
da Carpi, to whom Vasari and others have erroneously ascribed the
invention of this mode of imitating a drawing by impressions from two or
more wood-blocks. The subject, like that of the following specimen, is a
Repose in Egypt, but is treated in a different manner,--the Virgin being
represented giving suck to the infant Christ.
The wood engravings that contain Cranach’s mark are not so numerous as
those which contain the mark of Albert Durer, and they are also
generally inferior to the latter both in effect and design. The
following reduced copy of a cut which contains three of Cranach’s four
marks will afford some idea of the style of his designs on wood. As a
specimen of his ability in this branch of art it is perhaps superior to
the greater part of his designs executed in the same manner. The subject
is described by Bartsch as a Repose in Egypt. The action of the youthful
angels who are dancing round the Virgin and the infant Christ is
certainly truly juvenile if not graceful. The two children seen up the
tree robbing an eagle’s nest are perhaps emblematic of the promised
peace of Christ’s kingdom and of the destruction of the power of Satan:
“No lion shall be there nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it
shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.”[V-58] In
the right-hand corner at the top is the shield of the arms of Saxony;
and to the left, also at the top, is another of Cranach’s marks--a
shield with two swords crossed; in the right-hand corner at the bottom
is a third mark,--the figure of a kind of dragon with a ring in its
mouth. The size of the original cut is thirteen inches and one-fourth
high by nine inches and one-fourth wide.
[Footnote V-58: Isaiah, chapter xxxv. verse 9.]
[Illustration]
Cranach was much esteemed in his own country as a painter, and several
of his pictures are still regarded with admiration. He was in great
favour with John Frederick, Elector of Saxony,[V-59] and at one period
of his life was one of the magistrates of Wittenberg. He died at Weimar,
on 16th October 1553, aged eighty-three.
[Footnote V-59: One of the largest wood-cuts designed by Cranach
is a subject representing the baptism of some saint; and having on
one side a portrait of Frederick, Elector of Saxony, and on the
other a portrait of Luther. The block has consisted of three
pieces, and from the impressions it seems as if the parts
containing the portraits of the elector and Luther had been added
after the central part had been finished. The piece altogether is
comparatively worthless in design, and is very indifferently
engraved.]
Another eminent painter who has been classed with Durer and Cranach as a
wood engraver is Hans Burgmair, who was born at Augsburg about 1473. The
mark of this artist is to be found on a great number of wood engravings,
but beyond this fact there is not the least reason to suppose that he
ever engraved a single block. To those who have described Burgmair as a
wood engraver from this circumstance only, a most satisfactory answer is
afforded by the fact that several of the original blocks of the Triumphs
of Maximilian, which contain Burgmair’s mark, have at the back the names
of the different engravers by whom they were executed. As we have here
positive evidence of cuts with Burgmair’s mark being engraved by other
persons, we cannot certainly conclude that any cut, from the mere fact
of its containing his mark, was actually engraved by himself. Next to
Albert Durer he was one of the best designers on wood of his age; and as
one of the early masters of the German school of painting he is
generally considered as entitled to rank next to the great painter of
Nuremberg. It has indeed been supposed that Burgmair was a pupil of
Durer; but for this opinion there seems to be no sufficient ground. It
is certain that he made many of the designs for the wood-cuts published
under the title of The Triumphs of Maximilian; and it is also probable
that he drew nearly all the cuts in the book entitled Der Weiss
Kunig--The Wise King, another work illustrative of the learning, wisdom,
and adventures of the Emperor Maximilian.[V-60] Before proceeding,
however, to give any account of those works, it seems advisable to give
two specimens from a different series of wood-cuts of his designing, and
to briefly notice two or three of the more remarkable single cuts that
bear his mark.
[Footnote V-60: Burgmair also made the designs for a series of
saints, male and female, of the family of the emperor, which are
also engraved on wood. The original blocks, with the names of the
engravers written at the back, are still preserved, and are at
present in the Imperial Library at Vienna.]
The cut on the opposite page is a reduced copy from a series designed by
Burgmair. The subject is Samson and Delilah, and is treated according to
the old German fashion, without the least regard to propriety of
costume. Samson is represented like a grisly old German baron of
Burgmair’s own time, with limbs certainly not indicating extraordinary
strength; and Delilah seems very deliberately engaged in cutting off his
hair. The wine flagon and fowl, to the left, would seem to indicate the
danger of yielding to sensual indulgence. The original cut is surrounded
by an ornamental border, and is four inches and five-eighths high by
three inches and five-eighths wide. Burgmair’s mark H. B. is at the
bottom of the cut, to the right.
[Illustration]
The cut on page 280 is also a reduced copy from one of the same series,
and is a proof that those who call the whole by the general title of
“Bible Prints” are not exactly correct in their nomenclature. The
somewhat humorous-looking personage, whom a lady is using as her pad, is
thus described in an inscription underneath the cut: “Aristotle, a
Greek, the son of Nicomachus. A disciple of Plato, and the master of
Alexander the Great.” Though Aristotle is said to have been extremely
fond of his wife Pythaïs, and to have paid her divine honours after her
death, there is no record, I believe, of her having amused herself with
riding on her husband’s back. The subject is probably intended to
illustrate the power of the fair sex over even the wisest of mortals,
and to show that philosophers themselves when under such influence
occasionally forget their character as teachers of men, and exhibit
themselves in situations which scarcely an ass might envy. The original
is surrounded by a border, and is four inches and five-eighths high by
three inches and five-eighths wide.
[Illustration]
There are several chiaro-scuros from wood-blocks with Burgmair’s mark.
One of the earliest is a portrait of “Joannes Paungartner,” from two
blocks, with the date 1512; another of St. George on horseback, from two
blocks, engraved by Jost or Josse de Negher, without date; a third
representing a young woman flying from Death, who is seen killing a
young man,--from three blocks, without date; and a fourth of the Emperor
Maximilian on horseback, from two blocks, with the date 1518.
The best cuts of Burgmair’s designing, though drawn with great spirit
and freedom, are decidedly inferior to the best of the wood-cuts
designed by Albert Durer. Errors in perspective are frequent in the cuts
which bear his mark; his figures are not so varied nor their characters
so well indicated as Durer’s; and in their arrangement, or grouping, he
is also inferior to Durer, as well as in the art of giving effect to his
subjects by the skilful distribution of light and shade. The cuts in the
Wise King, nearly all of which are said to have been designed by him,
are, for the most part, very inferior productions both with respect to
engraving and design. His merits as a designer on wood are perhaps shown
to greater advantage in the Triumphs of Maximilian than in any other of
his works executed in this manner.--Some writers have asserted that
Burgmair died in 1517, but this is certainly incorrect; for there is a
portrait of him, with that of his wife on the same pannel, painted by
himself in 1529, when he was fifty-six years old. Underneath this
painting was a couplet to the following effect:
Our likeness such as here you view;--
The glass itself was not more true.[V-61]
[Footnote V-61:
“Solche Gestalt unser baider was,
Im Spigel aber nix dan das!”
A small engraving in a slight manner appears to have been made of
the portraits of Burgmair and his wife by George Christopher
Kilian, an artist of Augsburg, about 1774.--Von Murr, Journal,
4er Theil, S. 22.]
Burgmair, like Cranach, lived till he was upwards of eighty; but it
would seem that he had given up drawing on wood for many years previous
to his death, for I am not aware of there being any wood-cuts designed
by him with a date subsequent to 1530. He died in 1559, aged eighty-six.
Hans Schäufflein is another of those old German painters who are
generally supposed to have been also engravers on wood. Bartsch,
however, thinks that, like Durer, Cranach, and Burgmair, he only made
the designs for the wood-cuts which are ascribed to him, and that they
were engraved by other persons. Schäufflein was born at Nuremberg in
1483; and it is said that he was a pupil of Albert Durer. Subsequently
he removed to Nordlingen, a town in Suabia, about sixty miles to the
south-westward of Nuremberg, where he died in 1550.
The wood-cuts in connexion with which Schäufllein’s name is most
frequently mentioned are the illustrations of the work usually called
the Adventures of Sir Theurdank,[V-62] an allegorical poem, in folio,
which is said to have been the joint composition of the Emperor
Maximilian and his private secretary Melchior Pfintzing, provost of the
church of St. Sebald at Nuremberg. Though Köhler, a German author, in an
Essay on Sir Theurdank,--De inclyto libro poetico Theurdank,--has highly
praised the poetical beauties of the work, they are certainly not such
as are likely to interest an English reader. “The versified allegory of
Sir Theurdank,” says Küttner,[V-63] “is deficient in true Epic beauty;
it has also nothing, as a poem, of the romantic descriptions of the
thirteenth century,--nothing of the delicate gallantry of the age of
chivalry and the troubadours. The machinery which sets all in action are
certain personifications of Envy, restless Curiosity, and Daring; these
induce the hero to undertake many perilous adventures, from which he
always escapes through Understanding and Virtue. Such is the groundwork
of the fable which Pfintzing constructs in order to extol, under
allegorical representations, the perils, adventures, and heroic deeds of
the emperor. Everything is described so figuratively as to amount to a
riddle; and the story proceeds with little connexion and without
animation. There are no striking descriptive passages, no Homeric
similes, and no episodes to allow the reader occasionally to rest; in
fact, nothing admirable, spirit-stirring, or great. The poem is indeed
rather moral than epic; Lucan’s Pharsalia partakes more of the epic
character than Pfintzing’s Theurdank. Pfintzing, however, surpasses the
Cyclic poets alluded to by Horace.”[V-64]
[Footnote V-62: The original title of the work is: “Die
gevarlichkeiten und eins teils der Geschichten des loblichen
streytparen und hochberümbten Helds und Ritters Tewrdanckha.” That
is: The adventurous deeds and part of the history of the famous,
valiant, and highly-renowned hero Sir Theurdank. The name,
Theurdank, in the language of the period, would seem to imply a
person whose thoughts were only employed on noble and elevated
subjects. Goethe, who in his youth was fond of looking over old
books illustrated with wood-cuts, alludes to Sir Theurdank in his
admirable play of Götz von Berlichingen: “Geht! Geht!” says
Adelheid to Weislingen, “Erzählt das Mädchen die den Teurdanck
lesen, und sich so einen Mann wünschen.”--“Go! Go! Tell that to a
girl who reads Sir Theurdank, and wishes that she may have such a
husband.” In Sir Walter Scott’s faulty translation of this
play--under the name of _William_ Scott, 1799,--the passage is
rendered as follows: “Go! Go! Talk of that to some forsaken damsel
whose Corydon has proved forsworn.” In another passage where
Goethe makes Adelheid allude to the popular “Märchen,” or tale, of
Number-Nip, the point is completely lost in the translation:
“Entbinden nicht unsre Gesetze solchen Schwüren?--Macht das
Kindern weiss die den Rübezahl glauben.” Literally, “Do not our
laws release you from such oaths?--Tell that to children who
believe Number-Nip.” In Sir Walter Scott’s translation the passage
is thus most incorrectly rendered: “Such agreement is no more
binding than an unjust extorted oath. Every child knows what faith
is to be kept with robbers.” The name _Rübezahl_ is literally
translated by _Number-Neep_; Rübe is the German name for a
turnip,--Scoticè, a neep. The story is as well known in Germany as
that of Jack the Giant-Killer in England.]
[Footnote V-63: Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten,
S. 71. Berlin, 1781.]
[Footnote V-64:
Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:
“Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum:”
Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?
Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus.
Ars Poetica, v. 136-139.
In a Greek epigram the Cyclic poets are thus noticed:
Τοὺς κυκλίους τούτους τοὺς αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα λέγοντας
Μισῶ λωποδύτας ἀλλοτρίων ἐπέων.]
The first edition of Sir Theurdank was printed by Hans Schönsperger the
elder, at Nuremberg in 1517; and in 1519 two editions appeared at
Augsburg from the press of the same printer. As Schönsperger’s
established printing-office was at the latter city and not at Nuremberg,
Panzer has supposed that the imprint of Nuremberg in the first edition
might have been introduced as a compliment to the nominal author,
Melchior Pfintzing, who then resided in that city. Two or three other
editions of Sir Theurdank, with the same cuts, appeared between 1519 and
1602; but Küttner, in his Characters of German poets and prose-writers,
says that in all those editions alterations have been made in the text.
The character in which Sir Theurdank is printed is of great beauty and
much ornamented with flourishes. Several writers, and among others
Fournier, who was a type-founder and wood-engraver, have erroneously
described the text as having been engraved on blocks of wood. This very
superficial and incorrect writer also states that the cuts contained in
the volume are “chefs-d’œuvres de la gravure en bois.”[V-65] His opinion
with respect to the cuts is about as correct as his judgment respecting
the type; the most of them are in fact very ordinary productions, and
are neither remarkable for execution nor design. He also informs his
readers that he has discovered on some of those cuts an H and an S,
accompanied with a little shovel, and that they are the monogram of
_Hans Sebalde_, or Hans Schäufflein. By _Hans Sebalde_ he perhaps means
Hans Sebald Behaim, an artist born at Nuremberg in 1500, and who never
used the letters H and S, accompanied with a little shovel, as a
monogram. Fournier did not know that this mark is used exclusively by
Hans Schäufflein; and that the little shovel, or baker’s peel,--called
in old German, Schäufflein, or Scheuffleine,--is a rebus of his surname.
The careful examination of writers more deserving of credit has
completely proved that the text of the three earliest editions--those
only in which it was asserted to be from engraved wood-blocks--is
printed from moveable types of metal. Breitkopf[V-66] has observed, that
in the edition of 1517 the letter i, in the word _shickhet_, in the
second line following the eighty-fourth cut, is inverted; and Panzer and
Brunner have noticed several variations in the orthography of the second
and third editions when compared with the first.
[Footnote V-65: Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progres de l’Art
de Graver en Bois, p. 74. Paris, 1758.]
[Footnote V-66: The kind of character in which the text of Sir
Theurdank is printed is called “Fractur” by German printers. “The
first work,” says Breitkopf, “which afforded an example of a
perfectly-shaped _Fractur_ for printing, was unquestionably the
Theurdank, printed at Nuremberg, 1517.”--Ueber Bibliographie und
Bibliophile, S. 8. 1793.--Neudörffer, a contemporary, who lived at
Nuremberg at the time when Sir Theurdank was first published, says
that the specimens for the types were written by Vincent Rockner,
the emperor’s court-secretary.--Von Murr, Journal, 2er Theil,
S. 159; and Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, p. 194.]
There are a hundred and eighteen wood-cuts in the Adventures of Sir
Theurdank, which are all supposed to have been designed, if not
engraved, by Hans Schäufflein, though his mark, [Symbol], occurs on not
more than five or six. From the general similarity of style I have,
however, no doubt that the designs were all made by the same person, and
I think it more likely that Schaufflein was the designer than the
engraver. The cut on page 284 is a reduced copy of that numbered 14 in
the first edition. The original is six inches and one-fourth high by
five inches and a half wide. In this cut, Sir Theurdank is seen, in the
dress of a hunter, encountering a huge bear; while to the right is
perceived one of his tempters, _Fürwittig_--restless Curiosity,--and to
the left, on horseback, Theurdank’s squire, Ernhold. The title of the
chapter, or fytte, to which this cut is prefixed is to the following
effect: “How Fürwittig led Sir Theurdank into a perilous encounter with
a she-bear.” The subject of the thirteenth chapter is his perilous
encounter with a stag, and in the fifteenth we are entertained with the
narration of one of his adventures when hunting the chamois.
[Illustration]
The opposite cut is a reduced copy of No. 111 in the Adventures of Sir
Theurdank. The title of the chapter to which this cut is prefixed is:
“How Unfalo [one of Theurdank’s tempters] was hung.” A monk at the foot
of the gallows appears to pray for the culprit just turned off; while
Ernold seems to be explaining to a group of spectators to the left the
reason of the execution. The cut illustrative of the 110th chapter
represents the beheading of “Fürwittig;” and in the 112th, “Neydelhart,”
the basest of Theurdank’s enemies, is seen receiving the reward of his
perfidy by being thrown into a moat. The two original cuts which have
been selected as specimens of the wood engravings in the Adventures of
Sir Theurdank, though not the best, are perhaps, in point of design and
execution, rather superior to two-thirds of those contained in the work.
The copies, though less in size, afford a tolerably correct idea of the
style of the originals, which no one who is acquainted with the best
wood-cuts engraved after the designs of Durer and Burgmair will assert
to be “chefs-d’œuvres” of the art of wood engraving.
[Illustration]
There are a number of wood-cuts which contain Hans Schäufflein’s mark,
though somewhat different from that which occurs in the Adventures of
Sir Theurdank; the S being linked with one of the upright lines of the
H, instead of being placed between them. When the letters are combined
in this manner, there are frequently two little shovels crossed, “in
saltire,” as a herald would say, instead of a single one as in Sir
Theurdank. The following mark, [Symbol], occurs on a series of wood-cuts
illustrative of Christ’s Passion, printed at Frankfort by C. Egenolf,
1542; on the cuts in a German almanack, Mentz, 1545, and 1547; and on
several single subjects executed about that period. This mark, it is
said, distinguishes the designs of Hans Schaufflein the younger.
Bartsch, however, observes, that “what Strutt has said about there being
two persons of this name, an elder and a younger, seems to be a mere
conjecture.”
The book entitled Der Weiss Kunig--the Wise King--is another of the
works projected by the Emperor Maximilian in order to inform the world
of sundry matters concerning his father Frederick III, his own
education, warlike and perilous deeds, government, wooing, and wedding.
This work is in prose; and though Marx Treitzsaurwein, the emperor’s
secretary, is put forth as the author, there is little doubt of its
having been chiefly composed by Maximilian himself. About 1512 it
appears that the materials for this work were prepared by the emperor,
and that about 1514 they were entrusted to his secretary,
Treitzsaurwein, to be put in order. It would appear that before the work
was ready for the press Maximilian had died; and Charles V. was too much
occupied with other matters to pay much attention to the publication of
an enigmatical work, whose chief object was to celebrate the
accomplishments, knowledge, and adventures of his grandfather. The
obscurity of many passages in the emperor’s manuscript seems to have, in
a great measure, retarded the completion of the work. There is now in
the Imperial Library at Vienna a manuscript volume of queries respecting
the doubtful passages in the Weiss Kunig; and as each had ultimately to
be referred to the emperor, it would seem that, from the pressure of
more important business and his increased age, he had wanted leisure and
spirits to give the necessary explanations. In the sixteenth century,
Richard Strein, an eminent philologer, began a sort of commentary or
exposition of the more difficult passages in the Wise King; and
subsequently his remarks came into the hands of George Christopher von
Schallenberg, who, in 1631, had the good fortune to obtain at Vienna
impressions of most of the cuts which were intended by the emperor to
illustrate the work, together with several of the original drawings.
Treitzsaurwein’s manuscript, which for many years had been preserved at
Ambras in the Tyrol, having been transferred to the Imperial Library at
Vienna, and the original blocks having been discovered in the Jesuits’
College at Gratz in Stiria, the text and cuts were printed together, for
the first time, in a folio volume, at Vienna in 1775.[V-67]
[Footnote V-67: The title of the volume is “Der Weiss Kunig. Eine
Erzehlung von den Thaten Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten. Von Marx
Treitzsaurwein auf dessen Angeben zusammen getragen, nebst von
Hannsen Burgmair dazu verfertigten Holzschnitten. Herausgeben aus
dem Manuscripte der Kaiserl. Königl. Hofbibliothek. Wien, auf
Kosten Joseph Kurzböckens, 1775.”]
It is probable that the greater part, if not all the cuts, were finished
previous to the emperor’s death; and impressions of them, very likely
taken shortly after the blocks were finished, were known to collectors
long before the publication of the book. The late Mr. Ottley had
seventy-seven of the series, apparently taken as proofs by means of a
press. The paper on which these cuts are impressed appears to have
consisted of fragments, on one side of which there had previously been
printed certain state papers of the Emperor Maximilian, dated 1514. They
were sold at the sale of the late Mr. Ottley’s engravings in 1838, and
are now in the Print Room of the British Museum. In the volume printed
at Vienna in 1775, there are two hundred and thirty-seven[V-68] large
cuts, of which number ninety-two contain Burgmair’s mark, H. B; one
contains Schaufflein’s mark; another the mark of Hans Springinklee; and
a third, a modern cut, is marked “F. F. S. V. 1775.” Besides the large
cuts, all of which are old except the last noticed, there are a few
worthless tail-pieces of modern execution, one of which, a nondescript
bird, has been copied by Bewick, and is to be found at page 144 of the
first edition of his Quadrupeds, 1790.
[Footnote V-68: In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a
series of old impressions of cuts intended for “Der Weiss Kunig,”
consisting of two hundred and fifty pieces; it would therefore
appear, supposing this set to be perfect, that there are fourteen
of the original blocks lost. Why a single modern cut has been
admitted into the book, and thirteen of the old impressions not
re-engraved, it perhaps would be difficult to give a satisfactory
reason.]
The cuts in the Weiss Kunig, with respect to the style in which they are
designed, bear considerable resemblance to those in Sir Theurdank; and
from their execution it is evident that they have been cut by different
engravers; some of them being executed in a very superior manner, and
others affording proofs of their either being cut by a novice or a very
indifferent workman. It has been said that all those which contain the
mark of Hans Burgmair show a decided superiority in point of engraving;
but this assertion is not correct, for several of them may be classed
with the worst executed in the volume. The unequal manner in which the
cuts with Burgmair’s mark are executed is with me an additional reason
for believing that he only furnished the designs for professional wood
engravers to execute, and never engraved on wood himself.
It seems unnecessary to give any specimens of the cuts in the Weiss
Kunig, as an idea of their style may be formed from those given at pages
284 and 285 from Sir Theurdank; and as other specimens of Burgmair’s
talents as a designer on wood will be given subsequently from the
Triumphs of Maximilian. The following abstract of the titles of a few of
the chapters may perhaps afford some idea of the work, while they prove
that the education of the emperor embraced a wide circle, forming almost
a perfect Cyclopædia. The first fifteen chapters give an account of the
marriage of the Old Wise King, Frederick III, the father of Maximilian,
with Elenora, daughter of Alphonso V, King of Portugal; his journey to
Rome and his coronation there by the pope; with the birth, and
christening of Maximilian, the Young Wise King. About thirty-five
chapters, from XV. to L., are chiefly occupied with an account of
Maximilian’s education. After learning to write, he is instructed in the
liberal arts; and after some time devoted to “Politik,” or King-craft,
he proceeds to the study of the _black-art_, a branch of knowledge which
the emperor subsequently held to be vain and ungodly. He then commences
the study of history, devotes some attention to medicine and law, and
learns the Italian and Bohemian languages. He then learns to paint;
studies the principles of architecture, and tries his hand at carpentry.
He next takes lessons in music; and about the same time acquires a
practical knowledge of the art of cookery:--the Wise King, we are
informed, was a person of nice taste in kitchen affairs, and had a
proper relish for savoury and well-cooked viands. To the accomplishment
of dancing he adds a knowledge of numismatics; and, after making himself
acquainted with the mode of working mines, he learns to shoot with the
hand-gun and the cross-bow. The chase, falconry, angling, and fowling
next occupy his attention; and about the same time he learns to fence,
to tilt, and to manage the great horse. His course of education appears
to have been wound up with practical lessons in the art of making
armour, in gunnery, and in fortification. From the fiftieth chapter to
the conclusion, the book is chiefly filled with accounts of the wars and
adventures of Maximilian, which are for the most part allegorically
detailed, and require the reader to be well versed in the true history
of the emperor to be able to unriddle them. Küttner says that,
notwithstanding its allegories and enigmatical allusions, the Weiss
Kunig is a work which displays much mind in the conception and
execution, and considerable force and elegance of language; and that it
chiefly wants a more orderly arrangement of the events. “Throughout the
whole,” he adds, “there are evidences of a searching genius, improved by
science and a knowledge of the affairs of the world.”[V-69]
[Footnote V-69: Charaktere Teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten,
S. 70.]
The series of wood-cuts called the Triumphs of Maximilian are, both with
respect to design and engraving, the best of all the works thus executed
by command of the emperor to convey to posterity a pictorial
representation of the splendour of his court, his victories, and the
extent of his possessions. This work appears to have been commenced
about the same time as the Weiss Kunig; and from the subject,
a triumphal procession, it was probably intended to be the last of the
series of wood-cuts by which he was desirous of disseminating an opinion
of his power and his fame. Of those works he only lived to see one
published,--the Adventures of Sir Theurdank; the Wise King, the
Triumphal Car, the Triumphal Arch, and the Triumphal Procession, appear
to have been all unfinished at the time of his decease in 1519. The
total number of cuts contained in the latter work, published under the
title of the Triumphs of Maximilian, in 1796, is one hundred and
thirty-five; but had the series been finished according to the original
drawings, now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna, the whole
number of the cuts would have been about two hundred and eighteen. Of
the hundred and thirty-five published there are about sixteen designed
in a style so different from the rest, that it is doubtful if they
belong to the same series; and this suspicion receives further
confirmation from the fact that the subjects of those sixteen doubtful
cuts are not to be found among the original designs. It would therefore
seem, that, unless some of the blocks have been lost or destroyed,
little more than one-half of the cuts intended for the Triumphal
Procession were finished when the emperor’s death put a stop to the
further progress of the work. It is almost certain, that none of the
cuts were engraved after the emperor’s death; for the date, commencing
with 1516, is written at the back of several of the original blocks, and
on no one is it later than 1519.
The plan of the Triumphal Procession,--consisting of a description of
the characters to be introduced, the order in which they are to follow
each other, their arms, dress, and appointments,--appears to have been
dictated by the emperor to his secretary Treitzsaurwein, the nominal
author of the Weiss Kunig, in 1512. In this manuscript the subjects for
the rhyming inscriptions intended for the different banners and tablets
are also noted in prose. Another manuscript, in the handwriting of
Treitzsaurwein, and interlined by the emperor himself, contains the
inscriptions for the banners and tablets in verse; and a third
manuscript, written after the drawings were finished, contains a
description of the subjects,--though not so much in detail as the first,
and in some particulars slightly differing,--with all the inscriptions
in verse except eight. From those manuscripts, which are preserved in
the Imperial Library at Vienna, the descriptions in the edition of 1796
have been transcribed. Most of the descriptions and verses were
previously given by Von Murr, in 1775, in the ninth volume of his
Journal. The edition of the Triumphal Procession published in 1796 also
contains a French translation of the descriptions, with numbers
referring to those printed at the right-hand corner of the cuts. The
numbers, however, of the description and the cut in very many instances
do not agree; and it would almost seem, from the manner in which the
text is printed, that the publishers did not wish to facilitate a
comparison between the description and the cut which they have numbered
as corresponding with it. The gross negligence of the publishers, or
their editor, in this respect materially detracts from the interest of
the work. To compare the descriptions with the cuts is not only a work
of some trouble, but it is also labour thrown away. Von Murr’s volume,
from its convenient size, is of much greater use in comparing the cuts
with the description than the text printed in the edition of 1796; and
though it contains no numbers for reference,--as no complete collection
of the cuts had then been printed,--it contains no misdirections: and it
is better to have no guide-posts than such as only lead the traveller
wrong.
The original drawings for the Triumphal Procession,--or as the work is
usually called, the Triumphs of Maximilian,--are preserved in the
Imperial Library at Vienna. They are painted in water colours, on a
hundred and nine sheets of vellum, each thirty-four inches long by
twenty inches high, and containing two of the engraved subjects. Dr.
Dibdin, who saw the drawings in 1818, says that they are rather gaudily
executed, and that he prefers the engravings to the original
paintings.[V-70] Whether those paintings are the work of Hans Burgmair,
or not, appears to be uncertain. From the following extract from the
preface to the Triumphs of Maximilian, published in 1796, it is evident
that the writer did not think that the original drawings were executed
by that artist. “The engravings of this Triumph, far from being servile
copies of the paintings in miniature, differ from them entirely, so far
as regards the manner in which they are designed. Most all the groups
have a different form, and almost every figure a different attitude;
_consequently Hans Burgmair appears in his work in the character of
author [original designer], and so much the more, as he has in many
points surpassed his model_. But whatever may be the difference between
the engravings and the drawings on vellum, the subjects still so far
correspond that they may be recognised without the least difficulty. It
is, however, necessary to except eighteen of the engravings, in which
this correspondence would be sought for in vain. Those engravings are,
the twelve from No. 89 to 100, and the six from 130 to 135.” As the cuts
appear to have been intentionally wrong numbered, it is not easy to
determine from this reference which are actually the first twelve
alluded to, for in most of the copies which I have seen, the numerals
91, 92, and 93 occur twice,--though the subjects of the cuts are
different. In the copy now before me, I have to observe that there are
_sixteen_[V-71] cuts designed in a style so different from those which
contain Burgmair’s mark, that I am convinced they have not been drawn by
that artist. Without enquiring whether the subjects are to be found in
the paintings or not, I am satisfied that a considerable number of the
engravings, besides those sixteen, were not drawn on the wood by Hans
Burgmair. Both Breitkopf and Von Murr[V-72] have asserted that the
drawings for the Triumphs of Maximilian were made by Albert Durer, but
they do not say whether they mean the drawings on vellum, or the
drawings on the blocks. This assertion is, however, made without any
authority; and, whether they meant the drawings on vellum or the
drawings on the block, it is unquestionably incorrect. The drawings on
vellum are not by Durer, and of the whole hundred and thirty-five cuts
there are not more than five or six that can be supposed with any degree
of probability to have been of his designing.
[Footnote V-70: Bibliographical Tour, vol iii. p. 330.]
[Footnote V-71: The subjects of those sixteen cuts are chiefly the
statues of the emperor’s ancestors, with representations of
himself, and of his family alliances. Several of the carriages are
propelled by mechanical contrivances, which for laborious
ingenuity may vie with the machine for uncorking bottles in one of
the subjects of Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode. In the copy before
me those engravings are numbered 89, 90, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93,
94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103.]
[Footnote V-72: Breitkopf, Ueber Bibliographie und Bibliophile,
S. 4. Leipzig, 1793. Von Murr, Journal, 9er Theil, S. 1. At page
255 I have said: “Though I have not been able to ascertain
satisfactorily the subject of Durer’s painting in the Town-hall of
Nuremberg, I am inclined to think that it is the Triumphal _Car_
of Maximilian.” Since the sheet containing the above passage was
printed off I have ascertained that the subject _is_ the Triumphal
Car; and that it is described in Von Murr’s Nürnbergischen
Merkwürdigkeiten, S. 395.]
Forty of the blocks from which the Triumphs of Maximilian are printed
were obtained from Ambras in the Tyrol, where they had probably been
preserved since the time of the emperor’s death; and the other
ninety-five were discovered in the Jesuits’ College at Gratz in Stiria.
The whole were brought to Vienna and deposited in the Imperial Library
in 1779. A few proofs had probably been taken when the blocks were
engraved; there are ninety of those old impressions in the Imperial
Library; Monsieur Mariette had ninety-seven; and Sandrart had seen a
hundred. The latter, in speaking of those impressions, expresses a
suspicion of the original blocks having been destroyed in a fire at
Augsburg; their subsequent discovery, however, at Ambras and Gratz,
shows that his suspicion was not well founded. On the discovery of those
blocks it was supposed that the remainder of the series, as described in
the manuscript, might also be still in existence; but after a diligent
search no more have been found. It is indeed highly probable that the
further progress of the work had been interrupted by Maximilian’s death,
and that if any more of the series were finished, the number must have
been few. About 1775, a few impressions were taken from the blocks
preserved at Ambras, and also from those at Gratz; but no collection of
the whole accompanied with text was ever printed until 1796, when an
edition in large folio was printed at Vienna by permission of the
Austrian government, and with the name of J. Edwards, then a bookseller
in Pall-Mall, on the title-page, as the London publisher. It is much to
be regretted that greater pains were not taken to afford the reader
every information that could be obtained with respect to the cuts; and
it says very little for the English publisher’s patriotism that the
translation of the original German descriptions should be in
French;--but perhaps there might be a reason for this, for, where no
precise meaning is to be conveyed, French is certainly much better than
English. From the fact of several of the subjects not being contained in
the original drawings, and from the great difference in the style of
many of the cuts, it is by no means certain that they were all intended
for the same work. There can, however, be little doubt of their all
having been designed for a triumphal procession intended to celebrate
the fame of Maximilian.
The original blocks, now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna,
are all of pear-tree, and several of them are partially worm-eaten. At
the back of those blocks are written or engraved seventeen names and
initials, which are supposed, with great probability, to be those of
the engravers by whom they were executed. At the back of No. 18, which
represents five musicians in a car, there is written, “Der kert an
die Elland,--hat _Wilhelm geschnitten_:” that is, “This follows the
Elks.--Engraved by William.” In the preceding cut, No. 17, are
the two elks which draw the car, and on one of the traces is Hans
Burgmair’s mark. At the back of No. 20 is written, “_Jobst putavit,
14 Aprilis 1517. Die gehert an die bifel, und die bifel halt Jos
geschnitten._”[V-73] This inscription Mr. Ottley, at page 756, volume
ii. of his Inquiry, expounds as follows: “Josse putavit (perhaps for
_punctavit_), the 14th of April, 1517. This block joins to that which
represents the Buffaloes.” This translation is substantially correct;
but it is exceedingly doubtful if _putavit_ was written in mistake for
_punctavit_. The proposed substitution indeed seems very like explaining
an _ignotum per ignotius_. The verb _punctare_ is never, that I am aware
of, used by any writer, either classical or modern, to express the idea
of engraving on wood. A German, however, who was but imperfectly
acquainted with Latin, would not be unlikely to translate the German
verb _schneiden_, which signifies _to cut_ generally, by the Latin
_putare_, which is specially applied to the lopping or pruning of trees.
I have heard it conjectured that _putavit_ might have been used in the
sense of _imaginavit_, as if Jobst were the designer; but there can be
little doubt of its being here intended to express the cutting of the
wood-engraver; for Burgmair’s mark is to be found both on this cut and
on the preceding one of the two buffaloes, No. 19; and it cannot for a
moment be supposed that he was a mere workman employed to execute the
designs of another person. Were such a supposition granted, it would
follow that the wood-engraver of that period--at least so far as regards
the work in question--was considered as a much superior person to
him who drew the designs; that the _workman_, in fact, was to be
commemorated, but the _artist_ forgotten; a conclusion which is
diametrically opposed to fact, for so little were the mere
wood-engravers of that period esteemed, that we only incidentally become
acquainted with their names; and from their not putting their marks or
initials to the cuts which they engraved has arisen the popular error
that Durer, Cranach, Burgmair, and others, who are known to have been
painters of great repute in their day, were wood-engravers and executed
themselves the wood-cuts which bear their marks.
[Footnote V-73: _Jobst_ and _Jos_, in this inscription, are
probably intended for the name of the same person. For the name
Jobst, Jost, Josse, or Jos--for it is thus variously spelled--we
have no equivalent in English. It is not unusual in Germany as a
baptismal name--it can scarcely be called _Christian_--and is
Latinized, I believe, under the more lengthy form of _Jodocus_.]
The following are the names and initial letters at the back of the
blocks. 1. Jerome André, called also Jerome Resch, or Rösch, the
engraver of the Triumphal Arch designed by Albert Durer. 2. Jan de Bonn.
3. Cornelius. 4. Hans Frank. 5. Saint German. 6. Wilhelm. 7. Corneille
Liefrink. 8. Wilhelm Liefrink. 9. Alexis Lindt. 10. Josse de Negker. On
several of the blocks Negker is styled, “engraver on wood, at Augsburg.”
11. Vincent Pfarkecher. 12. Jaques Rupp. 13. Hans Schaufflein. 14. Jan
Taberith. 15. F. P. 16. H. F. 17. W. R. It is not unlikely that
“Cornelius,” No. 3, may be the same as Corneille Liefrink, No. 7; and
that “Wilhelm,” No. 6, and Wilhelm Liefrink, No. 8, may also be the same
person. At the back of the block which corresponds with the description
numbered 120, Hans Schaufflein’s name is found coupled with that of
Cornelius Liefrink; and at the back of the cut which corresponds with
the description numbered 121 Schaufflein’s name occurs alone.[V-74] The
occurrence of Schaufflein’s name at the back of the cuts would certainly
seem to indicate that he was one of the engravers; but his name also
appearing at the back of that described under No. 120, in conjunction
with the name of Cornelius Liefrink, who was certainly a
wood-engraver,[V-75] makes me inclined to suppose that he might only
have made the drawing on the block and not have engraved the cut; and
this supposition seems to be partly confirmed by the fact that the cuts
which are numbered 104, 105, and 106, corresponding with the
descriptions Nos. 119, 120, and 121, have not Hans Burgmair’s mark, and
are much more like the undoubted designs of Hans Schaufflein than those
of that artist. That the cuts published under the title of the Triumphs
of Maximilian were not all drawn on the block by the same person will,
I think, appear probable to any one who even cursorily examines them;
and whoever carefully compares them can scarcely have a doubt on the
subject.
[Footnote V-74: The printed numbers on those two cuts are 105 and
106, though the descriptions are numbered 120 and 121 in the text.
The subjects are, No. 105, two ranks, of five men each, on foot,
carrying long lances; and No. 106, two ranks, of five men each, on
foot, carrying large two-handed swords on their
shoulders.--Perhaps it may not be out of place to correct here the
following passage which occurs at page 285 of this volume:
“Bartsch, however, observes, that ‘what Strutt has said about
there being two persons of this name [Hans Schaufflein], an elder
and a younger, seems to be a mere conjecture.’” Since the sheet
containing this passage was printed off, I have learnt from a
paper, in Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen, 5tes. Stück, S. 210, that
Hans Schäufflein had a son of the same name who was also a
painter, and that the elder Schäufflein died at Nordlingen, in
1539. At page 281, his death, on the authority of Bartsch, is
erroneously placed in 1550.]
[Footnote V-75: The name of Cornelius Liefrink occurs at the back
of some of the wood-cuts representing the saints of the family of
Maximilian, designed by Burgmair, mentioned at page 278, note.]
[Illustration: From No. 15. With Burgmair’s mark.]
[Illustration: From No. 65. Apparently not drawn by Burgmair.]
Almost every one of the cuts that contains Burgmair’s mark, in the
Triumphal Procession, is designed with great spirit, and has evidently
been drawn by an artist who had a thorough command of his pencil. His
horses are generally strong and heavy, and the men on their backs of a
stout and muscular form. The action of the horses seems natural; and the
indications of the joints and the drawing of the hoofs--which are mostly
low and broad--evidently show that the artist had paid some attention to
the structure of the animal. There are, however, a considerable number
of cuts where both men and horses appear remarkable for their leanness;
and in which the hoofs of the horses are most incorrectly drawn, and the
action of the animals represented in a manner which is by no means
natural. Though it is not unlikely that Hans Burgmair was capable of
drawing both a stout, heavy horse, and a long-backed, thin-quartered,
lean one, I cannot persuade myself that he would, in almost every
instance, draw the hoofs and legs of the one correctly, and those of the
other with great inaccuracy. The cut on the opposite page and the five
next following, of single figures, copied on a reduced scale from the
Triumphs, will exemplify the preceding observations. The numbers are
those printed on the cuts, and they all, except one, appear to
correspond with the French descriptions in the text. The preceding cut
is from that marked No. 15. The mark of Hans Burgmair is on the
ornamental breast-plate, as an English saddler would call it, that
passes across the horse’s chest. This figure, in the original cut,
carries a tablet suspended from a staff, of which the lower part only is
perceived in the copy, as it has not been thought necessary to give the
tablet and a large scroll which were intended to contain
inscriptions.[V-76] The description of the subject is to the following
effect: “After the chase, comes a figure on horseback, bearing a tablet,
on which shall be written the five charges of the court,--that is, of
the butler, the cook, the barber, the tailor, and the shoemaker; and
Eberbach shall be the under-marshal of the household, and carry the
tablet.”
[Footnote V-76: In all the blocks, the tablets and scrolls, and
the upper part of banners intended to receive verses and
inscriptions, were left unengraved. In order that the appearance
of the cuts might not be injured, the black ground, intended for
the letters, was cut away in most of the tablets and scrolls, in
the edition of 1796.]
The cut on page 295 is a reduced copy of a figure, the last, in No. 65,
which is without Burgmair’s mark. In the original the horseman bears a
banner, having on it the arms of the state or city which he represents;
and at the top of the banner a black space whereon a name or motto ought
to have been engraved. The original cut contains three figures; and, if
the description can be relied on, the banners which they bear are those
of Fribourg, Bregentz, and Saulgau. The other two horsemen and their
steeds in No. 65 are still more unlike those in the cuts which contain
Burgmair’s mark.
[Illustration: From No. 33. With Burgmair’s mark.]
The above cut is a reduced copy of a figure on horseback in No. 33.
Burgmair’s mark, an H and a B, may be perceived on the trappings of the
horse. This figure, in the original, bears a large tablet, and he is
followed by five men on foot carrying flails, the _swingels_[V-77] of
which are of leather. The description of the cut,--which forms the first
of seven representing the dresses and arms of combatants on foot,--is as
follows: “Then shall come a person mounted and properly habited like a
master of arms, and he shall carry the tablet containing the rhyme.
Item, Hans Hollywars shall be the master of arms, and his rhyme shall be
this effect: that he has professed the noble practice of arms at the
court, according to the method devised by the emperor.”[V-78]
[Footnote V-77: That part of the flail which comes in contact with
the corn is, in the North of England, termed a _swingel_.]
[Footnote V-78: The substance of almost every rhyme and
inscription is, that the person who bears the rhyme-tablet or
scroll has derived great improvement in his art or profession from
the instructions or suggestions of the emperor. Huntsmen,
falconers, trumpeters, organists, fencing-masters, ballet-masters,
tourniers, and jousters, all acknowledge their obligations in this
respect to Maximilian. For the wit and humour of the jesters and
the natural fools, the emperor, with great forbearance, takes to
himself no credit; and Anthony von Dornstett, the leader of the
drummers and fifers, is one of the few whose art he has not
improved.]
The following is a reduced copy of a figure in the cut erroneously
numbered 83, but which corresponds with the description that refers to
84. This figure is the last of the three, who, in the original, are
represented bearing banners containing the arms of Malines, Salins and
Antwerp.
[Illustration: From No. 83. Apparently not drawn by Burgmair.]
[Illustration: From No. 27. With Burgmair’s mark.]
The following figure, who is given with his rhyme-tablet in full, is
copied from the cut numbered 27. This jovial-looking personage, as we
learn from the description, is the Will Somers of Maximilian’s court,
and he figures as the leader of the professed jesters and the natural
fools, who appear in all ages to have been the subjects of “pleasant
mirth.” The instructions to the painter are as follows: “Then shall come
one on horseback habited like a jester, and carrying a rhyme-tablet for
the jesters and natural fools; and he shall be Conrad von der Rosen.”
The fool’s cap with the bell at the peak, denoting his profession, is
perceived hanging on his left shoulder; and on the breast-plate,
crossing the chest of the horse, is Burgmair’s mark.
[Illustration: No. 74. Apparently not drawn by Burgmair.]
The figure on page 299 of a horseman, bearing the banner of Burgundy, is
from the cut numbered 74. The drawing both of rider and horse is
extremely unlike the style of Burgmair as displayed in those cuts which
contain his mark. Burgmair’s men are generally stout, and their
attitudes free; and they all appear to sit well on horseback. The
present lean, lanky figure, who rides a horse that seems admirably
suited to him, cannot have been designed by Burgmair, unless he was
accustomed to design in two styles which were the very opposites of each
other; the one distinguished by the freedom and the boldness of the
drawing, the stoutness of the men, and the bulky form of the horses
introduced; and the other remarkable for laboured and stiff drawing,
gaunt and meagre men, and leggy, starved-like cattle. The whole of the
cuts from No. 57 to No. 88, inclusive,--representing, except
three,[V-79] men on horseback bearing the banners of the kingdoms and
states either possessed or claimed by the emperor,--are designed in the
latter style. Not only are the men and horses represented according to a
different standard, but even the very ground is indicated in a different
manner; it seems to abound in fragments of stones almost like a
Macadamized road after a shower of rain. There is indeed no lack of
stones on Burgmair’s ground, but they appear more like rounded pebbles,
and are not scattered about with so liberal a hand as in the cuts
alluded to. In not one of those cuts which are so unlike Burgmair’s is
the mark of that artist to be found; and their general appearance is so
unlike that of the cuts undoubtedly designed by him, that any person in
the least acquainted with works of art will, even on a cursory
examination, perceive the strongly marked difference.
[Footnote V-79: Those three are the numbers 77, 78, 79,
representing musicians on horseback. The same person who drew the
standard-bearers has evidently drawn those three cuts also.]
The following cut is a reduced copy of that numbered 57; and which is
the first of those representing horsemen bearing the banners of the
several kingdoms, states, and cities subject to the house of Austria or
to which Maximilian laid claim. It is one of the most gorgeous of the
series; but, from the manner in which the horses and their riders are
represented, I feel convinced that it has not been drawn by Burgmair.
The subject is thus described in the emperor’s directions prefixed to
the volume: “One on horseback bearing the banner of the arms of Austria;
another on horseback bearing the old Austrian arms; another also on
horseback bearing the arms of Stiria.” On the parts which are left black
in the banners it had been intended to insert inscriptions. The
instructions to the painter for this part of the procession are to the
following effect: “One on horseback bearing on a lance a rhyme-tablet.
Then the arms of the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria on
banners, with their shields, helms, and crests, borne by horsemen; and
the banners of those countries in which the emperor has carried on war
shall be borne by riders in armour; and the painter shall vary the
armour according to the old manner. The banners of those countries in
which the emperor has not carried on war shall be borne by horsemen
without armour, but all splendidly clothed, each according to the
costume of the country he represents. Every one shall wear a laurel
wreath.”
[Illustration: No. 57. Apparently not drawn by Burgmair.]
The cut on the next page is copied from that numbered 107, but which
accords with the description of No. 122. The subject is described by the
emperor as follows: “Then shall come riding a man of Calicut, naked,
except his loins covered with a girdle, bearing a rhyme-tablet, on which
shall be inscribed these words, ‘These people are the subjects of the
famous crowns and houses heretofore named.’” In this cut the mark of
Burgmair is perceived on the harness on the breast of the elephant.
There are two other cuts of Indians belonging to the same part of the
procession, each of which also contains Burgmair’s mark.
[Illustration: No. 107. With Burgmair’s mark.]
The cuts which were to follow the Indians and close the procession were
the baggage-waggons and camp-followers of the army. Of those there are
five cuts in the work published in 1796, and it is evident that some are
wanting, for the two which may be considered as the first and last of
those five, respectively require a preceding and a following cut to
render them complete; and there are also one or two cuts wanting to
complete the intermediate subjects. Those cuts are referred to in the
French description under Nos. 125 to 129, but they are numbered 129,
128, 110, 111, 125. The last three, as parts of a large subject, follow
each other as the numbers are here placed; and though the right side of
No. 110 accords with the left of No. 128, inasmuch as they each contain
the half of a tree which appears complete when they are joined together,
yet there are no horses in No. 128 to draw the waggon which is seen in
No. 110. The order of Nos. 110, 111, and 125, is easily ascertained;
a horse at the left of No. 110 wants a tail which is to be found in
No. 111; and the outline of a mountain in the left of No. 111 is
continued in the right of No. 125. From the back-grounds, trees, and
figures in those cuts I am very much inclined to think that they have
been engraved from designs by Albert Durer, if he did not actually draw
them on the block himself. There is no mark to be found on any of them;
and they are extremely unlike any cuts which are undoubtedly of
Burgmair’s designing, and they are decidedly superior to any that are
usually ascribed to Hans Schaufflein. The following, which is a reduced
copy of that numbered 110, will perhaps afford some idea of those cuts,
and enable persons who are acquainted with Durer’s works to judge for
themselves with respect to the probability of their having been engraved
from his designs. One or two of the other four contain still more
striking resemblances of Durer’s style.
[Illustration: No. 110. Probably drawn by Albert Durer.]
Besides the twelve cuts which, in the French preface to the Triumphal
Procession of Maximilian, are said not to correspond with the original
drawings, there are also six others which the editor says are not to be
found in the original designs, and which he considers to have been
additions made to the work while it was in the course of engraving.
Those six cuts are described in an appendix, where their numbers are
said to be from 130 to 135. In No. 130 the principal figures are a king
and queen, on horseback, supposed to be intended for Philip the Fair,
son of the Emperor Maximilian, and his wife Joanna of Castile. This cut
is very indifferently executed, and has evidently been designed by the
artist who made the drawings for the questionable cuts containing the
complicated locomotive carriages, mentioned at page 290. No. 131,
a princess on horseback, accompanied by two female attendants also on
horseback, and guards on foot, has evidently been designed by the same
artist as No. 130. These two, I am inclined to think, belong to some
other work. Nos. 132, 133, and 134, are from the designs of Hans
Burgmair, whose mark is to be found on each; and there can be little
doubt of their having been intended for Maximilian’s Triumphal
Procession. They form one continuous subject, which represents twelve
men, habited in various costume, leading the same number of horses
splendidly caparisoned. A figure on horseback bearing a rhyme-tablet
leads this part of the procession; and above the horses are large
scrolls probably intended to contain their names, with those of the
countries to which they belong. The cut on the opposite page is a
reduced copy of the last, numbered 135, which is thus described in the
appendix: “The fore part of a triumphal car, drawn by four horses yoked
abreast, and managed by a winged female figure who holds in her left
hand a wreath of laurel.” There is no mark on the original cut; but from
the manner in which the horses are drawn it seems like one of Burgmair’s
designing.
That the cuts of the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian were engraved by
different persons is certain from the names at their backs; and I think
the difference that is to be perceived in the style of drawing renders
it in the highest degree probable that the subjects were designed, or at
least drawn on the wood, by different artists. I am inclined to think
that Burgmair drew very few besides those that contain his mark; the
cuts of the banner-bearers I am persuaded are not of his drawing;
a third artist, of inferior talent, seems to have made the drawings of
the fanciful cars containing the emperor and his family; and the five
cuts of the baggage-waggons and camp followers, appear, as I have
already said, extremely like the designs of Albert Durer. The best
engraved cuts are to be found among those which contain Burgmair’s mark.
Some of the banner-bearers are also very ably executed, though not in so
free or bold a manner; which I conceive to be owing to the more laboured
style in which the subject has been drawn on the block. The mechanical
subjects, with their accompanying figures, are the worst engraved as
well as the worst drawn of the whole. The five cuts which I suppose to
have been designed by Albert Durer are engraved with great spirit, but
not so well as the best of those which contain the mark of Burgmair.
[Illustration: No. 135. Apparently designed by Burgmair.]
Though there are still in existence upwards of a hundred of the original
blocks designed by Albert Durer, and upwards of three hundred designed
by the most eminent of his contemporaries, yet a person who professes to
be an instructor of the public on subjects of art made the following
statement before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Arts
and their Connexion with Manufactures, appointed in 1835. He is asked,
“Do you consider that the progress of the arts in this country is
impeded by the want of protection for new inventions of importance?” and
he proceeds to enlighten the committee as follows. “Very much impeded.
Inventions connected with the arts of design, of new instruments, or new
processes, for example, are, from the ease with which they can be
pirated, more difficult of protection than any other inventions
whatever. Such protection as the existing laws afford is quite
inadequate. I cannot better illustrate my meaning, than by mentioning
the case of _engraving in metallic relief_, an art which is supposed to
have existed three or four centuries ago; and the re-discovery of which
has long been a desideratum among artists. Albert Durer, who was both a
painter and engraver, _certainly possessed this art_, that is to say,
the art of transferring his designs, after they had been sketched on
paper, _immediately into metallic relief_, so that they might be printed
along with letter-press. At present, the only sort of engravings you can
print along with letter-press are wood engravings, or stereotype casts
from wood engravings; and then those engravings are but copies, and
often very rude copies, of their originals; while, in the case of Albert
Durer, it is QUITE CLEAR _that it was his own identical designs that
were transferred into the metallic relief_. Wood engravings, too, are
limited in point of size, _because they can only be executed on
box-wood_, the width of which is very small; in fact, we have no wood
engravings on a single block of a larger size than octavo: when the
engraving is larger, two or three blocks are joined together; but this
is attended with so much difficulty and inconvenience, that it is seldom
done. From the specimens of _metallic relief engraving_, left us by
Albert Durer, there is every reason to infer that he was under no such
limitation; that he could produce plates of any size.”[V-80] This
statement abounds in errors, and may justify a suspicion that the person
who made it had never seen the cuts designed by Albert Durer which he
pretends were executed in “metallic relief.” At the commencement he says
that the art of engraving in metallic relief is _supposed_ to have
existed three or four centuries ago; and immediately afterwards he
asserts that Albert Durer “certainly possessed this art;” as if by his
mere word he could convert a groundless fiction into a positive fact.
When he made this confident assertion he seems not to have been aware
that many of the original pear-tree blocks of the cuts pretendedly
executed in metallic relief are still in existence; and when, speaking
of the difficulty of getting blocks of a larger size than an octavo, he
says, “From the specimens of metallic relief engraving, left us by
Albert Durer, there is every reason to infer that he was under no such
limitation,--that he could produce plates of any size,” he affords a
positive proof that he knows nothing of the subject on which he has
spoken so confidently. Had he ever examined the large cuts engraved from
Durer’s designs, he would have seen, in several, undeniable marks of the
junction of the blocks, proving directly the reverse of what he asserts
on this point. What he says with respect to the modern practice of the
art is as incorrect as his assertions about Albert Durer’s engraving in
metallic relief. Though it is true that there are few modern engravings
on box-wood of a larger size than octavo, it is not true that the
forming of a large block of two or more pieces is attended with much
difficulty, and is seldom done. The making of such blocks is now a
regular trade; they are formed without the least difficulty, and
hundreds of cuts on such blocks are engraved in London every year.[V-81]
When he says that wood engravings “can only be made on box-wood,” he
gives another proof of his ignorance of the subject. Most of the earlier
wood engravings were executed on blocks of pear-tree or crab; and even
at the present time box-wood is seldom used for the large cuts on
posting-bills. In short, every statement that this person has made on
the subject of wood and pretended metallic relief engraving is
incorrect; and it is rather surprising that none of the members of the
committee should have exposed his ignorance. When such persons put
themselves forward as the instructors of mechanics on the subject of
art, it cannot be a matter of surprise that in the arts as applied to
manufactures we should be inferior to our continental neighbours.
[Footnote V-80: Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee on
Arts and Manufactures, p. 130. Ordered to be printed, 16th August
1836.]
[Footnote V-81: Among the principal modern wood-cuts engraved on
blocks consisting of several pieces the following may be
mentioned: The Chillingham Bull, by Thomas Bewick, 1789; A view of
St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-on-Tyne, by Charlton Nesbit, from
a drawing by R. Johnson, 1798; The Diploma of the Highland
Society, by Luke Clennell, from a design by B. West, P.R.A. 1808;
The Death of Dentatus, by William Harvey, from a painting by B. R.
Haydon, 1821; and The Old Horse waiting for Death, left
unfinished, by T. Bewick, and published in 1832.]
The art of imitating drawings--called chiaro-scuro--by means of
impressions from two or more blocks, was cultivated with great success
in Italy by Ugo da Carpi about 1518. The invention of this art, as has
been previously remarked, is ascribed to him by some writers, but
without any sufficient grounds; for not even the slightest evidence has
been produced by them to show that he, or any other Italian artist, had
executed a single cut in this manner previous to 1509, the date of a
chiaro-scuro wood engraving from a design by Lucas Cranach. Though it is
highly probable that Ugo da Carpi was not the inventor of this art, it
is certain that he greatly improved it. The chiaro-scuros executed by
him are not only superior to those of the German artists, who most
likely preceded him in this department of wood engraving, but to the
present time they remain unsurpassed. In the present day Mr. George
Baxter has attempted to extend the boundaries of this art by calling in
the aid of aquatint for his outlines and first ground, and by copying
the positive colours of an oil or water-colour painting. Most of Ugo da
Carpi’s chiaro-scuros are from Raffaele’s designs, and it is said that
the great painter himself drew some of the subjects on the blocks.
Independent of the excellence of the designs, the characteristics of Da
Carpi’s chiaro-scuros are their effect and the simplicity of their
execution; for all of them, except one or two, appear to have been
produced from not more than three blocks. The following may be mentioned
as the principal of Da Carpi’s works in this style. A Sibyl reading with
a boy holding a torch, from two blocks, said by Vasari to be the
artist’s first attempt in this style; Jacob’s Dream; David cutting off
the head of Goliah; the Death of Ananias; Giving the Keys to Peter; the
miraculous Draught of Fishes; the Descent from the Cross; the
Resurrection; and Æneas carrying away his father Anchises on his
shoulders from the fire of Troy;[V-82] all the preceding from the
designs of Raffaele. Among the subjects designed by other masters are
St. Peter preaching, after Polidoro; and Diogenes showing the plucked
cock in ridicule of Plato’s definition of man, “a two-legged animal
without feathers,” after Parmegiano. The latter, which is remarkably
bold and spirited, is from four blocks; and Vasari says that it is the
best of all Da Carpi’s chiaro-scuros. Many of Da Carpi’s productions in
this style were copied by Andrea Andreani of Milan, about 1580. That of
Æneas carrying his father on his shoulders was copied by Edward Kirkall,
an English engraver in 1722. Kirkall’s copy is not entirely from
wood-blocks, like the original; the outlines and the greater part of the
shadows are from a copper-plate engraved in mezzotint, in a manner
similar to that which has more recently been adopted by Mr. Baxter in
his picture-printing.
[Footnote V-82: At the foot of this cut, to the right, after the
name of the designer,--“RAPHAEL URBINAS,”--is the following
privilege, granted by Pope Leo X. and the Doge of Venice,
prohibiting all persons from pirating the work. “QUISQUE HAS
TABELLAS INVITO AUTORE IMPRIMET EX DIVI LEONIS X. ET IL͞L
PRINCIPIS VENETIARUM DECRETIS EXCOMINICATIONIS SENTENTIAM ET ALIAS
PENAS INCURRET.” Below this inscription is the engraver’s name
with the date: “Romæ apud Ugum de Carpi impressum. MDXVIII.”]
Lucas Dammetz, generally called Lucas van Leyden, from the place of his
birth, was an excellent engraver on copper, and in this branch of art
more nearly approached Durer than any other of his German or Flemish
contemporaries. He is said to have been born at Leyden in 1496; and, if
this date be correct, he at a very early age gave decided proofs of his
talents as an engraver on copper. One of his earliest prints, the monk
Sergius killed by Mahomet, is dated 1508, when he was only fourteen
years of age; and at the age of twelve he is said to have painted, in
distemper, a picture of St. Hubert which excited the admiration of all
the artists of the time. Of his numerous copper-plate engravings there
are no less than twenty-one which, though they contain no date, are
supposed to have been executed previously to 1508. As several of those
plates are of very considerable merit, it would appear that Lucas while
yet a boy excelled, as a copper-plate engraver, most of his German and
Dutch contemporaries. From 1508 to 1533, the year of his death, he
appears to have engraved not less than two hundred copper-plates; and,
as if these were not sufficient to occupy his time, he in the same
period painted several pictures, some of which were of large size. He is
also said to have excelled as a painter on glass; and like Durer,
Cranach, and Burgmair, he is ranked among the wood engravers of that
period.
The wood-cuts which contain the mark of Lucas van Leyden, or which are
usually ascribed to him, are not numerous; and, even admitting them to
have been engraved by himself, the fact would contribute but little to
his fame, for I have not seen one which might not have been executed by
a professional “formschneider” of very moderate abilities. The total of
the wood-cuts supposed to have been engraved by him does not exceed
twenty. The following is a reduced copy of a wood-cut ascribed to Lucas
van Leyden, in the Print Room of the British Museum, but which is not in
Bartsch’s Catalogue, nor in the list of Lucas van Leyden’s engravings in
Meusel’s Neue Miscellaneen. Though I very much question if the original
cut were engraved by Lucas himself, I have no doubt of its being from
his design. It represents the death of Sisera; and, with a noble
contempt of the unity of time, Jael is seen giving Sisera a drink of
milk, driving the nail into his head, and then showing the body,--with
herself in the act of driving the nail,--to Barak and his followers: the
absurdity of this threefold action has perhaps never been surpassed in
any cut ancient or modern. Sir Boyle Roach said that it was impossible
for any _person_, except a _bird_ or a _fish_, to be in two places at
once; but here we have a pictorial representation of a female being in
no less than three; and in one of the localities actually pointing out
to certain persons how she was then employed in another.
[Illustration]
Heineken, in his account of engravers of the Flemish school, has either
committed an egregious mistake, or expressed himself with intentional
ambiguity with respect to a wood-cut printed at Antwerp, and which he
saw in the collections of the Abbé de Marolles. His notice of this cut
is as follows: “I found in the collections of the Abbé de Marolles, in
the cabinet of the King of France, a detached piece, which, in my
opinion, is the most ancient of the wood engravings executed in the Low
Countries which bear the name of the artist. This cut is marked,
_Gheprint t’ Antwerpen by my Phillery de figursnider_--Printed at
Antwerp, by me Phillery, the engraver of figures. It serves as a proof
that the engravers of moulds were, at Antwerp, in that ancient time,
also printers.”[V-83]
[Footnote V-83: “J’ai trouvé dans les Recueils de l’Abbé de
Marolles, au Cabinet du Roi de France, une piece détachée, qui,
suivant mon sentiment, est la plus ancienne de celles, qui sont
gravées en bois dans les Païs-Bas, et qui portent le nom de
l’artiste. Cette estampe est marquée: _Gheprint t’ Antwerpen by my
Phillery de figursnider--Imprimé à Anvers, chez moi Phillery, le
graveur de figures_. Elle sert de preuve, que les graveurs de
moules étoient aussi, dans cet ancien tems, imprimeurs à
Anvers.”--Idée Générale d’une Collection complette d’Estampes,
p. 197.]
In this vague and ambiguous account, the writer gives us no idea of the
period to which he refers in the words “cet ancien tems.” If he means
the time between the pretended invention of Coster, and the period when
typography was probably first practised in the Low Countries,--that is,
from about 1430 to 1472,--he is wrong, and his statement would afford
ground for a presumption that he had either examined the cut very
carelessly, or that he was so superficially acquainted with the
progressive improvement of the art of wood engraving as to mistake a cut
abounding in cross-hatching, and certainly executed subsequent to 1524,
for one that had been executed about seventy years previously, when
cross-hatching was never attempted, and when the costume was as
different from that of the figures represented in the cut as the costume
of Vandyke’s portraits is dissimilar to Hogarth’s. The words “_graveurs
de moules_,” I have translated literally “engravers of moulds,” for I
cannot conceive what else Heineken can mean; but this expression is
scarcely warranted by the word “_figuersnider_” on the cut, which is
almost the same as the German “formschneider;” and whatever might be the
original meaning of the word, it was certainly used to express merely a
wood engraver. Compilers of Histories of Art, and Dictionaries of
Painters and Engravers, who usually follow their leader, even in his
slips, as regularly as a flock of sheep follow the bell-wether through a
gap, have disseminated Heineken’s mistake, and the antiquity of
“_Phillery’s_” wood-engraving is about as firmly established as Lawrence
Coster’s invention of typography. One of those “straightforward” people
has indeed gone rather beyond his authority; for in a “Dictionary of the
Fine Arts,” published in 1826, we are expressly informed that
“_Phillery, who lived near the end of the fourteenth century, was the
first engraver on wood who practised in the Netherlands_.”[V-84] It is
thus that error on the subject of art, and indeed on every other
subject, is propagated: a writer of reputation makes an incorrect or an
ambiguous statement; other writers adopt it without examination, and not
unfrequently one of that class whose confidence in deciding on a
question is in the inverse ratio of their knowledge of the subject,
proceeds beyond his original authority, and declares that to be certain
which previously had only been doubtfully or obscurely expressed. In
Heineken’s notice of this cut there is an implied qualification under
which he might screen himself from a charge of incorrectness with
respect to the time of its execution, though not from a charge of
ambiguity. He says that, in his opinion, it is “the most ancient of the
wood engravings executed in the Low Countries _which bear the name of
the artist_;” and with this limitation his opinion may be correct,
although the cut were only engraved in 1525 or 1526; for I am not aware
of any wood engraving of an earlier date, executed in the Low Countries,
that contains the _name_ of the artist, though there are several which
contain the artist’s mark. It also may be argued that the words “_cet
ancien tems_” might be about as correctly applied to designate the year
1525 as 1470: if, however, he meant the first of those dates, he has
expressed himself in an equivocal manner, for he is generally understood
to refer the cut to a considerably earlier period. It has been indeed
conjectured that Heineken, in speaking of this cut, might intentionally
express himself obscurely, in order that he might not give offence to
his friend Monsieur Mariette, who is said to have considered it to be
one of the earliest specimens of wood engravings executed in the Low
Countries. This is, however, without any sufficient reason, merely
shifting the charge of ignorance, with respect to the difference of
style in wood engravings of different periods, from Heineken to Monsieur
Mariette. As there is no evidence to show that the latter ever expressed
any such opinion as that ascribed to him respecting the antiquity of the
cut in question, Heineken alone is answerable for the account contained
in his book. Impressions of the cut by “_Phillery_” are not of very
great rarity; there are two in the Print Room at the British Museum, and
from one of them the reduced copy in the following page has been
carefully made.
[Footnote V-84: In a work of a similar kind, and of equal
authority, published in 1834, we are informed that Ugo da Carpi
was a historical painter, and that he died in 1500. He was only
born in 1486.]
[Illustration]
Any person, however, slightly acquainted with the progress of wood
engraving could scarcely fail to pronounce that the original of this cut
must have been executed subsequent to 1500, and in all probability
subsequent to the cuts of the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian, to the
general style of which, so far as relates to the manner of engraving, it
bears considerable resemblance. The costume of the figures, too, also
proves that it does not belong to the fifteenth century; and on
carefully examining the inscription, a person accustomed to the old
German or Dutch characters would be more likely to read “_Willem_” than
“_Phillery_” as the name of the artist. To one of the impressions in the
British Museum a former owner, after extracting Heineken’s account, has
appended the following remark: “This is the print above described. There
seems to be an inconsiderable mistake in the name, which I take to be
D’villery.” It is to be observed that in the original, as in the
preceding copy, the inscription is engraved on wood, and not set up in
type; and that consequently the first character of the doubtful name is
rather indistinct. It is however most probably a _W_; and the last is
certainly an _m_, with a flourish at its tail. The intermediate letters
_ille_ are plain enough, and if the first be supposed to be a _W_, and
the last an _m_, we have the name _Willem_,--a very probable prenomen
for a Dutch wood engraver of the sixteenth century. The inscription when
carefully examined is literally as follows: “_Gheprint Tantwerpen Bij
mij Willem de Figuersnider_.” Heineken’s mistake of _Phillery_ for
_Willem_, or William, and thus giving a heretofore unheard-of name to
the list of artists, is not unlike that of Scopoli the naturalist, who,
in one of his works, has commemorated “Horace Head” as a London
bookseller.[V-85]
[Illustration]
[Footnote V-85: The sign of Mr. Benjamin White, formerly a
bookseller in Fleet Street, was Horace’s Head. In Scopoli’s
Deliciæ, Flora, et Fauna Insubriæ, plate 24 is thus inscribed:
“Auspiciis Benjamini White et Horatii Head, Bibliopol.
Londinensium.” The learned naturalist had mistaken Mr. White’s
sign for his partner in the business.]
Though the cut which bears the name of the supposed “Phillery” contains
internal evidence of its not having been engraved in the fifteenth
century, there is yet further reason to believe that it is merely a copy
of part of a cut of the same size by a Swiss artist of the name of Urse
Graff, which is dated 1524. There is an impression of Urse Graff’s cut
[V-86] in the Print Room of the British Museum; in the fore-ground are
the figures which have obviously been copied by _Willem de
Figuersnider_, alias _Phillery_, and immediately behind the middle
figure, who holds in his right hand a large Swiss espadon, is a leafless
tree with a figure of Death clinging to the upper part of the trunk, and
pointing to a hour-glass which he holds in his left hand. A bird,
probably intended for a raven, is perched above the hour-glass; and on
the trunk of the tree, near to the figure of Death, is Urse Graff’s mark
with the date as is here given. The back-ground presents a view of a
lake, with buildings and mountains on the left. The general character of
Urse Graff’s subject is Swiss, both in the scenery and figures; and the
perfect identity of the latter with those in the cut “printed at Antwerp
by William the figure-cutter” proves, beyond the possibility of a doubt,
that one of those two artists has copied the work of the other. Urse
Graff’s subject, however, is complete, and corresponds both in the
landscape and in the costume of the figures with the country of the
artist; while the cut of William of Antwerp represents merely an
unrelieved group of figures in the costume of Switzerland. Urse Graff
was an artist of reputation in his time; of “Willem,” who was probably
only an engraver of the designs of others, nothing more is known beyond
what is afforded by the single cut in question. From these
circumstances, though it cannot be positively decided which of those
cuts is the original, it is almost morally certain that the Flemish
figure-cutter has copied the work of the Swiss artist.--Urse Graff
resided at Basle, of which city he was probably a native. In one of his
engravings with the date 1523, he describes himself as a goldsmith and
die-sinker. Wood-cuts containing his mark are not very common, and the
most of them appear to have been executed between 1515 and 1528.
A series of wood-cuts of the Passion of Christ, designed in a very
inferior manner, and printed at Strasburg in 1509, are sometimes
ascribed to him on account of their being marked with the letters V. G.,
which some writers have supposed to be the mark of an artist named Von
Gamperlin. Professor Christ, in his Dictionary of Monograms, says that
he can find nothing to determine him in favour of the name Gamperlin;
and that he is rather inclined to think that those letters are intended
for the name Von Goar, which he believes that he has deciphered on an
engraving containing this mark. The mark of Urse Graff, a V and a G
interlaced, occurs in the ornamented border of the title-page of several
books printed at Basle, and amongst others on the title of a quarto
edition of Ulrich Hutten’s Nemo, printed there by Frobenius in 1519. At
the end of this edition there is a beautifully-designed cut of the
printer’s device, which is probably the work of the same artist.[V-87]
[Footnote V-86: This cut of Urse Graff is described in Bartsch’s
Peintre-Graveur, tom. vii. p. 465, No. 16.]
[Footnote V-87: The device of Frobenius at the end of an edition
of the same work, printed by him in 1518, is much inferior to that
in the edition of 1519. In both, the ornamental border of the
title-page is the same.]
A painter, named Nicholas Emanuel Deutsch, a contemporary of Urse Graff,
and who resided at Bern, is said, by Sandrart, to have been of a noble
English family, and the same writer adds that he left his own country on
account of his religion. The latter statement, however, is not likely to
be correct, for there are wood-cuts, with this artist’s mark, dated
“Bern, 1518;” which was before the persecution in England on account of
the doctrines of Luther had commenced. In J. R. Füssli’s Dictionary of
Artists it is stated that he was of a French family, of the name of
Cholard, but that he was born at Bern in 1484, and died there in 1530.
He was a poet as well as a painter, and held one of the highest offices
in the magistracy of Bern.
Within the first thirty years of the sixteenth century the practice of
illustrating books with wood-cuts seems to have been more general than
at any other period, scarcely excepting the present; for though within
the last eight or ten years an immense number of wood-cuts have been
executed in England and France, yet wood engravings at the time referred
to were introduced into a greater variety of books, and the art was more
generally practised throughout Europe. In modern German and Dutch works
wood engravings are sparingly introduced; and in works printed in
Switzerland and Italy they are still more rarely to be found. In the
former period the art seems to have been very generally practised
throughout Europe, though to a greater extent, and with greater skill,
in Germany than in any other country. The wood-cuts which are to be
found in Italian books printed between 1500 and 1530 are mostly meagre
in design and very indifferently engraved; and for many years after the
German wood engravers had begun to give variety of colour and richness
of effect to their cuts by means of cross-hatchings, their Italian
contemporaries continued to adhere to the old method of engraving their
figures, chiefly in outline, with the shadows and the folds of the
draperies indicated by parallel lines. These observations relate only to
the ordinary wood engravings of the period, printed in the same page
with type, or printed separately in the usual manner of surface printing
at one impression. The admirable chiaro-scuros of Ugo da Carpi, printed
from two or more blocks, are for effect and general excellence the most
admirable specimens of this branch of the art that ever have been
executed; they are as superior to the chiaro-scuros of German artists as
the usual wood engravings of the latter excel those executed in Italy
during the same period.
In point of drawing, some of the best wood-cuts executed in Italy in the
time of Albert Durer are to be found in a folio work entitled Triompho
di Fortuna, written by Sigismond Fanti, and printed at Venice in
1527.[V-88] The subject of this work, which was licensed by Pope Clement
VII, is the art of fortune-telling, or of answering all kinds of
questions relative to future events. The volume contains a considerable
number of wood-cuts; some designed and executed in the very humblest
style of wood engraving, and others, which appear to have been drawn on
the block with pen-and-ink, designed with great spirit. The smallest and
most inferior cuts serve as illustrations to the questions, and an idea
may be formed of them from the three here given, which occur under the
question: “Qual fede o legge sia di queste tre la buona, o la
Christiana, l’Hebrea, o quello di Mahumeto?”[V-89] In English: “Which of
these three religions is the best, the Christian, the Jewish, or the
Mahometan?” Several larger cuts are executed in a dry hard style, and
evidently drawn by a person very inferior to the artist who designed the
cuts executed in the manner of pen-and-ink drawings. The following is a
fac-simile of one of the latter. It is entitled “Fortuna de Africo,” in
a series of twelve, intended for representations of the winds.
[Footnote V-88: The title of this book is, in red letters,
“Triompho di Fortuna, di Sigismondo Fanti, Ferrarese.” The
title-page is also ornamented with a wood-cut, representing the
Pope, with Virtue on one side, and Vice on the other, seated above
the globe, which is supported by Atlas, and provided with an axis,
having a handle at each side, like a winch. At one of the handles
is a devil, and at the other an angel; to the left is a naked
figure holding a die, and near to him is an astronomer taking an
observation. At the foot of the cut is the mark I. M. or T. M.,
for I cannot positively decide whether the first letter be
intended for an I or a T. The following is the colophon: “Impresso
in la inclita citta di Venegia per Agostin da Portese. Nel anno
dil virgineo parto MD.XXVII. Nel mese di Genaro, ad instātia di
Jacomo Giunta Mercatāte Florentino. Con il Privilegio di Clemente
Papa VII, et del Senato Veneto a requisitione di l’Autore.” In the
Catalogue of the British Museum this book is erroneously entered
as printed at Rome, 1526. The compiler had mistaken the date of
the Pope’s licence for the time when the book was printed. This
trifling mistake is noticed here, as from similar oversights
bibliographers have sometimes described books as having been twice
or thrice printed, when, in fact, there had been only one
edition.]
[Footnote V-89: The following questions, selected from a number of
others, will perhaps afford some idea of this “Opera utilissima et
jocosa,” as it is called by the author. “Se glie bene a pigliar
bella, o bruta donna; se’l servo sara fidele al suo signore; se
quest’ anno sara carestia o abundantia; quanti mariti havera la
donna; se glie bene a far viaggio et a che tempo; se’l parto della
donna sara maschio o femina; se’l sogno fatto sara vero; se’l fin
del huomo sara buono.” The three small illustrations of the last
query are of evil omen; in one, is seen a gallows; in another,
a man praying; and in the third, the quarters of a human body hung
up in terrorem.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The following cut, which appears in folio 38, is intitled “Michael
Fiorentino,”--Michael Angelo; and it certainly conveys no bad idea of
the energetic manner in which that great artist is said to have used his
mallet and chisel when engaged on works of sculpture. This cut, however,
is made to represent several other sculptors besides the great
Florentine; it is repeated seven times in the subsequent pages, and on
each occasion we find underneath it a different name. The late
T. Stothard, R.A. was of opinion that wood engraving was best adapted to
express pen-and-ink drawing, and that the wood engraver generally failed
when he attempted more. His illustrations of Rogers’s poems, engraved on
wood by Clennell and Thompson, are executed in a similar style to that
of the following specimen, though with greater delicacy.
[Illustration]
Certain wood-cuts with the mark A. G., executed towards the conclusion
of the fifteenth century, have been ascribed to an artist named Albert
Glockenton. Bartsch, however, says that the name of the artist is
unknown; and he seems to consider that Sandrart had merely conjectured
that those letters might represent the name Albert Glockenton. For no
better reason the letters I. V. on a tablet, with two pilgrim’s-staffs
crossed between them, which are to be found on several old chiaro-scuro
wood engravings, have been supposed to represent the name, John Ulric
Pilgrim. This name appears to be a pure invention of some ingenious
expounder of monograms, for there is not the slightest evidence, that I
am aware of, to show that any artist of this name ever lived. The
chiaro-scuros with this mark were probably executed in the time of
Durer, but none of them contains a date to establish the fact. Heineken
considers them to have been the productions of a German artist; and he
refers to them in proof of the art of chiaro-scuro having been practised
in Germany long before the time of Ugo da Carpi. It is, however, highly
questionable if they are of an earlier date than 1518; and it is by no
means certain that the artist was a German. By some persons he has been
supposed to have been the inventor of chiaro-scuro engraving, on no
better grounds, it would seem, than that his pieces are without a date.
Next to the Germans, in the time of Albert Durer, the Dutch and Flemings
seem to have excelled in the art of wood engraving; but the cuts
executed in Holland and Flanders are generally much inferior to those
designed and engraved by German artists. In a considerable number of
Dutch wood engravings, of the period under review, I have observed an
attempt to combine something like the effect of cross-hatching and of
the dotted manner mentioned at page 232 as having been frequently
practised by French wood engravers in the early part of the sixteenth
century. In a series of cuts from a Dutch prayer-book, apparently
printed between 1520 and 1530, this style of engraving is frequently
introduced. Where a German artist would have introduced lines crossing
each other with great regularity, the Dutch wood engraver has
endeavoured to attain his object by irregularly picking out portions of
the wood with the point of his graver; the effect, however, is not good.
In the border surrounding those cuts, a Dance of Death is represented,
consisting of several more characters than are to be found in the
celebrated work ascribed to Holbein, but far inferior in point of design
and execution.
An artist, named John Walter van Assen, is usually mentioned as one of
the best Dutch wood engravers or designers of this period. Nothing
further is known of him than that he lived at Amsterdam about 1517. The
mark supposed to be Van Assen’s is often ascribed by expounders of
monograms to another artist whom they call Werner or Waer van Assanen.
A considerable number of French works, printed in the time of Albert
Durer, contain wood engravings, but few of them possess much merit when
compared with the more highly finished and correctly drawn productions
of the German school of the same period. The ornamental borders,
however, of many missals and prayer-books, which then issued in great
numbers from the Parisian press, frequently display great beauty. The
taste for surrounding each page with an ornamental border engraved on
wood was very generally prevalent in Germany, France, and Flanders at
that period, more especially in devotional works; and in the former
country, and in Switzerland, scarcely a tract was printed--and the
Lutheran controversy gave rise to many hundreds--without an ornamental
border surrounding the title. In Germany such wood engravers as were
chiefly employed in executing cuts of this kind were called
_Rahmen-schneiders_--border-cutters,--as has been previously observed at
page 190. In England during the same period wood engraving made but
little progress; and there seems to have been a lack of good designers
and competent engravers in this country. The best cuts printed in
England in the time of Durer are contained in a manual of prayers, of a
small duodecimo size. On a tablet in the border of one of the cuts--the
Flight into Egypt[V-90]--I perceive the date 1523. The total number of
cuts in the volume is about a hundred; and under each of the largest are
four verses in English. Several of the smaller cuts, representing
figures of saints, and preceding the prayers for their respective days,
have evidently been designed by an artist of considerable talent. As
most of the wood-cuts which constitute the ornaments or the
illustrations of books printed at this period are without any name or
mark, it is impossible to ascertain the names of the persons by whom
they were designed or engraved.
[Footnote V-90: The following lines descriptive of this cut are
printed underneath it:
+How Mary and Joseph with iesu were fayne.
In to Egypte for socour to fle.
Whan the Innocentes for his sake wer slayne.
By com̄issyon of Herodes crueltie.+]
The manner of wood engraving in _intaglio_ so that the figures appear
white on a black ground, so frequently adopted by early Italian wood
engravers, was sometimes practised in Germany; and in one of the
earliest works containing portraits of the Roman emperors,[V-91] copied
from ancient medals, printed in the latter country, the cuts are
executed in this style. The subject of the work is the lives of the
Roman emperors, written by Joannes Huttichius, and the portraits with
which it is illustrated are copied from medals in a collection which had
been formed by the Emperor Maximilian, the great promoter of wood
engraving in Germany. The first edition, in Latin, was printed by Wolff
Köpffel, at Strasburg, in 1525; and a second edition, in German, was
published at the same place in the succeeding year. The cut on the next
page, of the head of Nero, will afford an idea of the style in which the
portraits are executed, and of the fidelity with which the artist has in
general represented the likeness impressed on the original medals.
[Footnote V-91: In a folio work entitled “Epitome Thesauri
Antiquitatum, hoc est IMPP. Rom. Orientalium et Occidentalium
Iconum, ex Antiquis Numismatibus quam fidelissime delineatarum. Ex
Musæo Jacobi de Strada Mantuani Antiquarii,” Lyons, 1553, it is
stated that the first work containing portraits of the Roman
emperors engraved from their coins was that entitled “Illustrium
Imagines,” written by Cardinal Sadolet, and printed at Rome by
Jacobus Mazochius.--In Strada’s work the portraits are executed in
the same manner as in that of Huttichius. The wood-cut containing
the printer’s device, on the title-page of Strada’s work, is
admirably engraved.]
Besides Durer, Burgmair, Cranach, and Schaufflein, there are several
other German painters of the same period who are also said to have
engraved on wood, and among the most celebrated of this secondary class
the following may be mentioned: Hans Sebald Behaim, previously noticed
at page 253; Albert Altdorffer; Hans Springinklee; and Hans Baldung
Grün. The marks of all those artists are to be found on wood-cuts
executed in the time of Durer; but I am extremely doubtful if those cuts
were actually engraved by themselves. If they were, I can only say that,
though they might be good painters and designers, they were very
indifferent wood engravers; and that their time in executing the
subjects ascribed to them must have been very badly employed. The common
working _formschneider_ who could not execute them as well, must have
been a very ordinary wood-_cutter_, not to say wood-_engraver_,--by the
latter term meaning one who excels in his profession, and not a mere
cutter of lines, without skill or taste, on box or pear-tree.
[Illustration]
Albert Altdorffer was born at Ratisbon in 1480, and afterwards became a
magistrate of his native city. The engravings on wood and copper
containing his mark are mostly of a small size, and he is generally
known as one of the _little masters_ of the German school of
engraving.[V-92] Hans Springinklee was a painter of some eminence, and
according to Doppelmayer, as referred to by Bartsch, was a pupil of
Durer’s. His mark is to be found on several wood-cuts; and it occurs in
one of the illustrations in the Wise King. Hans Baldung Grün was born at
Gemund in Suabia, and studied at Nuremberg under Albert Durer. He
excelled as a painter; and the wood-cuts which contain his mark are
mostly designed with great spirit. The earliest wood engraving that
contains his mark is a frontispiece to a volume of sermons with the date
1508; and the latest is a group of horses, engraved in a hard, stiff
manner, with the name “BALDUNG” and the date 1534.[V-93] He chiefly
resided at Strasburg, where he died in 1545. He is mentioned by Durer,
in his Journal, by the name of “Grün Hannsen.”
[Footnote V-92: Heineken ranks the following in the class of
_little masters_: Henry Aldgrever, Albert Altdorffer, Bartholomew
Behaim, Hans Sebald Behaim, Hans Binck, Henry Goerting, George
Penez, and Virgil Solis. Most of them were engravers on copper.]
[Footnote V-93: The following curious testimony respecting a lock
of Albert Durer’s hair, which had formerly been in the possession
of Hans Baldung Grün, is translated from an article in Meusel’s
Neue Miscellaneen, 1799. The lock of hair and the document were
then in the possession of Herr H. S. Hüsgen of Frankfort on the
Mayn: “Herein is the hair which was cut from the head of that
ingenious and celebrated painter Albert Durer, after his death at
Nuremberg, 8th April 1528, as a token of remembrance. It
afterwards came into the possession of that skilful painter Hans
Baldung, burger of this city, Strasburg; and after his death, in
1545, my late brother-in-law, Nicholas Krämer, painter, of this
city, having bought sundry of his works and other things, among
them found this lock of hair, in an old letter, wherein was
written an account of what it contained. On the death of my
brother-in-law, in 1550, it was presented to me by my sister
Dorothy, and I now enclose it in this letter for a memorial. 1559.
SEBOLD BÜHELER.” To this testimony are subjoined two or three
others of subsequent date, showing in whose possession the valued
relic had been before it came into the hands of Herr Hüsgen.]
[Illustration]
We may here conveniently introduce fac-similes on a reduced scale of two
rather interesting wood engravings given by Dr. Dibdin in his
Bibliomania, and copied from an early folio volume, entitled
_Revelationes cœlestes sanctæ Brigittæ de Suecia_, printed at Nuremberg
by Anthony Köberger, M CCC XXI. _mensis Septembris_, which some read
1500, on the 21st of September, others 1521, in the month of September.
The first of these cuts is curious as representing the simplicity of an
ancient reading room, with its three-legged joint stool, such as is so
prettily described by Cowper, Task, I. v. 19; the other cut describes a
punishment which is said to have been revealed to St. Bridget against
those ladies who have “ornamenta indecentia capitibus et pedibus, et
reliquis membris, ad provocandam luxuriam, et irritandum Deum, in
strictis vestibus, ostensione mamillarum, unctionibus, &c.” The artist
is unknown, but seems to be among the best of the Nuremberg school.
[Illustration]
It cannot be reasonably doubted that Durer and several other German
painters of his time were accustomed to engrave their own designs on
copper; for in many instances we have the express testimony of their
contemporaries, and not unfrequently their own, to the fact.
Copper-plate engraving for about sixty years from the time of its
invention was generally practised by persons who were also painters, and
who usually engraved their own designs. Wood engraving, on the contrary,
from an early period was practised as a distinct profession by persons
who are never heard of as painters. That some of the early German
painters--of a period when “artists were more of workmen, and workmen
more of artists”[V-94] than in the present day--_might_ engrave some of
the wood-cuts which bear their marks, is certainly not impossible; but
it is highly improbable that all the wood-cuts which are ascribed to
them should have been executed by themselves. If any wood-cuts were
actually engraved by Durer, Cranach, Burgmair, and other painters of
reputation, I conceive that such cuts are not to be distinguished by
their superior execution from those engraved by the professional
_formschneider_ and _brief-maler_ of the day. The best copper-plates
engraved by Albert Durer can scarcely be surpassed by the best
copper-plate engraver of the present day,--that is, supposing him to
execute his work by the same means; while the best of the wood-cuts
which he is supposed to have engraved himself might be readily executed
by a score of modern wood engravers if the subject were drawn for them
on the block. In the age of Durer the best wood-cuts are of
comparatively large size, and are distinguished more from the boldness
and freedom of their design than from any peculiar excellence of
engraving: they display, in fact, rather the talent of the _artist_ than
the skill of the _workman_. Though wood engraving had very greatly
improved from about the end of the fifteenth century to the time of
Durer’s decease, yet it certainly did not attain its perfection within
that period. In later years, indeed, the workman has displayed greater
excellence; but at no time does the art appear to have been more
flourishing or more highly esteemed than in the reign of its great
patron, the Emperor Maximilian.
[Footnote V-94: Evidence of Dr. G. F. Waagen of Berlin before the
Select Committee of the House of Commons on Arts and their
Connexion with Manufactures, 1835.]
[Illustration]